


to be certain, we'll be tall again

by dygonilly



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Break Up, Reunions, boys kissing in a car by the ocean, inspired by evermore, jeon wonwoo got hot????, surprise! ocean metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dygonilly/pseuds/dygonilly
Summary: Seungcheol goes home and finds that Jeon Wonwoo never left.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Jeon Wonwoo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 154





	to be certain, we'll be tall again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [easycomeeasygo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/easycomeeasygo/gifts).



> my first scoup fic, for the king of woncheol and scoup feelings. happy (early) birthday, i love u!
> 
> (title and inspiration taken from 'evermore' by taylor swift ft. bon iver)

_And when I was shipwrecked (Can't think of all the cost)_  
_I thought of you (All the things that will be lost now)_  
_In the cracks of light (Can we just get a pause?)_  
_I dreamed of you (To be certain we'll be tall again, if you think of all the costs)_

Seungcheol arrives on his parents’ doorstep with no luggage and no call to say he was coming at all. His mother opens the door tentatively and then all at once, surprise painting the lines around her eyes. It’s been seven months since he’s seen her. He hugs her before she can even say hello.

“How long will you be staying?” his father asks over dinner.

“I’m not sure,” says Seungcheol, deep into his beer glass. “Is that okay?”

His mother seeks out his hand over the weathered wooden table and he grips it for dear life. “Of course,” she says kindly. “You are always welcome here. As long as you want.”

“Thanks, Eomma.” Seungcheol squeezes her hand and she winks at him; strong and loving and wonderful. Seungcheol can only ever hope to be half the person his parents wanted him to be. It’s all he can think to manage right now. It could be enough.

Yoon Jeonghan finds him sitting at the end of the jetty two days later, legs swinging over the churning ocean, watching the fish dart around the murky seaweed that clings to the wood.

He doesn’t say anything until he’s sitting next to Seungcheol, eyes on the horizon.

“How does it feel to be home?”

Seungcheol’s lungs are lined with salt. Ever since he was a child, oxygen has only ever made sense to him when it left an aftertaste. His palms are sticky with the brine coating the jetty, and he feels safe, and he feels like he could start again. The only wrong way is backwards. If he stands still for a while, then that’s okay. The ocean will wax and wane with the moon; they can do the moving for him until he’s ready to do it for himself.

He turns to Jeonghan and revels in the length of his hair, the way it tangles around his face, the soft edges of his smirk, the familiarity of a childhood friend and the distance that shatters every time they are together.

“It feels good,” he says, and means it.

After a week spent catching his breath, Seungcheol decides it’s time to start doing things again. He finds the grocery list tacked to the fridge and offers to drive down to the store in his mother’s place. She’s busy on a phone call with one of her friends, but she pauses to kiss him on the cheek and pinches it for good measure, a thank you in her eyes and the way she says _yes, I know, but she never listens to me_ , into the receiver.

The grocery store sits in between a touristy restaurant and a boutique clothing store run by a woman who recognises Seungcheol and waves with both hands and a broad smile through the window. He’s missed this: existing in a place where everybody knows him already. As a child it was a delight and as a teenager it felt like a curse, but now, after his years spent crammed in between skyscrapers and metro lines, Seungcheol revels in the familiarity. Sometimes he wishes his dreams were small enough for a small town, and perhaps they could be. Things change so quickly, after all.

He’s distracted as he gathers his things, squinting between the list in his hand and the signs above each aisle. It smells like a refrigerator in here, like collards and fruit and linoleum footsteps. It’s almost fun. Relaxing. Rhythmic.

Then he moves into the cereal aisle.

If his arm were not looped through the hooks of the basket, it would be on the floor, produce and ramen packets skittering everywhere.

“Wonwoo?”

Jeon Wonwoo looks up from where he’s squatting in front of two equally sugary cereals, knees tucked to his armpits. Recognition crests in waves: his eyes, his mouth, his body.

“Hyung!” He stands up, unfolding like furniture and growing three sizes until Seungcheol is standing across from a beautiful boy with broad shoulders and a smile that only shows the finest line of his teeth. His hair is a mess and his glasses still look thick enough to refract light into a forest fire, but he’s matured, undeniably—the sturdiness of his frame is evident under his t-shirt and in the angle of his jaw.

It’s been years.

“Hi,” Seungcheol says, pulling his gaze back to safety. “Hey. How are you?”

Wonwoo scuffs his shoe on the tiles. “I’m good.” His smile grows. “Just buying um. Breakfast.”

Seungcheol checks his watch. “At three p.m.?” he laughs.

“Yeah my sleep schedule could be much better than it is,” Wonwoo says. A woman shuffles past with her kid and he politely moves closer to the shelves. Seungcheol can’t believe they’re here. Foolish as it was, he thought they’d never cross paths again. But that hasn’t stopped him from imagining this moment over and over, like an intrusive thought, like _what would he think of me now?_ Like Jeon Wonwoo’s opinion still matters.

It’s been years.

“Would you um—“ Seungcheol juts his thumb over his shoulder. “I was going to go for a drive later. Do you want to join? We could get some beers and catch up. Or something.” Wonwoo is quiet enough that Seungcheol starts backtracking. “We don’t have to, I just thought it would be—“

“Yeah. Hyung, that sounds great.” Wonwoo’s chest puffs out and Seungcheol looks at it by mistake. “You still have my address?”

Seungcheol nods. “Unless you’ve moved?”

“I haven’t,” Wonwoo laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Then I’ll see you at... six?” Seungcheol walks past to get to the register and turns at the last second, walking backwards as he says, “Get the one on the left. It has more chocolate pieces.”

Wonwoo laughs, short and clumsy, and it fires goosebumps along Seungcheol’s arms, shoots him back to high school and the summers in between. It’s comforting to know that some things never change.

They drive with the windows down and the day shortening around them. Seungcheol doesn’t have any place in mind but he’s traced the coastline enough times to map it in his sleep. Wonwoo is distracting even though he isn’t doing anything. He’s tucked into himself in the passenger seat, casting glances at Seungcheol whenever he looks over, a shy smile on his lips. It takes a good fifteen minutes for the awkwardness to fly away on the breeze, and after that it’s a little easier. Seungcheol feels the most relaxed he’s felt since June.

Their conversation meanders with the road; by the time they pull into a carpark by one of the southern beaches they’ve caught up on all the mundane things that happen between high school and university graduation, and Wonwoo’s hand has migrated from his lap to rest an inch from the centre console. Seungcheol’s hand keeps twitching on the gearstick.

Something about being alone, something about the ocean breeze coating their teeth.

It’s been years.

It takes one beer for Seungcheol and two for Wonwoo and then they’re scrambling for each other over the centre console, hands in hair, mouths meeting like waves on the sand that stretches out before them.

The first time Seungcheol kissed Wonwoo he was nineteen and terrified.

His chest still feels heavy now like it did then, and his stomach is twisting in knots, but they’re not made of the same string. They’re hardened and frayed and they used to leave burns on someone else’s hands, mere weeks ago, and is it unfair of Seungcheol to be crowding Wonwoo against the headrest of the passenger seat without telling him? When he pants, “Backseat” against his mouth, and they both scramble outside and back into the car without even pausing for breath, and Wonwoo lets himself be tugged down against the seats and covered with Seungcheol’s mouth, his body, his hands—is it deceitful?

Wonwoo has always trusted him without question, even when they both had feelings they didn’t know what to do with so they turned to each other in the dark, their hands and smiles shaky but honest—always honest.

He deserves more than the silent desperation Seungcheol is giving him.

“Wonwoo, Wonwoo,” he pants, lips catching against Wonwoo’s. “Wait.”

“Don’t want to,” Wonwoo mutters, kissing him again, “been waiting long enough.”

Seungcheol keens. It’s hard to pull back a second time—Wonwoo knows a lot more about kissing than he did five years ago and his hands are hot and sure along Seungcheol’s side, under his shirt, tugging him closer, fingers digging into his waist.

“Wonwoo,” Seungcheol sighs, bringing both hands up to Wonwoo’s face to catch him, slow him down, force their eyes to meet. His thumb grazes the perfect peak of his cheekbone, the swell of his bottom lip. The coastline crumbles behind them. One year, one millimetre at a time. “I just—you deserve more.”

Wonwoo frowns. “More than what?” Seungcheol looks at him, terrified, and in his eyes he finds all the maturity Seungcheol pretended to have when they were kids, and then some. “Hyung… what makes you think this isn’t enough? That you…” Wonwoo exhales, searching for something. It takes him a second, and Seungcheol holds him as he waits. “I want this. I’ve wanted this. For years. It’s always been you.”

Seungcheol makes a small noise and tips their foreheads together so that he can hide. He feels guilty and heavy and burdened by the expectation that he should be better than he is, that he owes Wonwoo the best parts of himself, even when he already gave them to someone else and had them tossed back in his face. Not enough. Not good enough.

“His name was Yongsun,” he whispers. “He was nothing like you.”

“I know.” Wonwoo tips his face up with a fingertip beneath his chin. “Because if he was, he would have never let you go.”

Their mouths meet again: waves and white horses. There’s no space to lie down along the seats but that doesn’t deter Wonwoo in the slightest. He cages Seungcheol against the seat, hot and desperate, kissing along his neck, one hand on his ribs and the other hand down his pants. Seungcheol hiccups through it, says _you’re much better at this now,_ and Wonwoo grins, all cocksure and beautiful, and says, _I know_.

In the interest of equality and watching Jeon Wonwoo fall apart in the backseat of his car, Seungcheol presses three of his fingers into his mouth, encourages him to lick a stripe up his palm and wraps his hand around Wonwoo inside his boxers. There’s nowhere to go—Wonwoo is crowded over him, knee on the seat either side of his hips, crown of his head grazing the roof of the car, fingers digging into Seungcheol’s shoulder. He doesn’t make much noise but his body rolls into the movement of Seungcheol’s hand, chasing it, and Seungcheol uses his other hand to push up the hem of his shirt to watch his stomach muscles clench and release, to feel it under his fingertips. They finish in a heap of bodies and gasping breaths. The windows are still open. Seungcheol licks the salt off Wonwoo’s teeth and wills it to linger on his tongue.

“Are we allowed to drink on the beach?”

Wonwoo turns and walks backwards to face him, jeans and sea foam around his ankles, hair around his eyes. “Considering what we just did in your car, I don’t think it matters.”

Seungcheol laughs hard enough that he tips forward, and Wonwoo smiles at him with all of his teeth. Seungcheol knows how earned it is; he doesn’t take any of Wonwoo’s affection lightly. It’s terrible to consider he ever might have.

“Hey,” he says, walking closer.

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

Wonwoo’s eyebrows jump. “For what?”

“For…” Seungcheol stops walking and Wonwoo stops with him. The moon is bright enough to cast a reflection. They’re alone, otherwise. “I don’t know. Trusting me.”

Wonwoo smiles at him, confused. “You don’t have to thank me for that, hyung.”

“But I want to. I don’t think I ever did.”

Wonwoo’s hand flexes on his beer can. He takes a deep breath and speaks to his feet. They’re coated in sand. “Do you remember… the summer before you went to Seoul, we went on that camping trip with the others.”

Seungcheol grins. “And you got so sunburned you had to spend an entire day sleeping.”

“Yes,” Wonwoo grins too, looking up. His smile sticks like honey. “But afterwards, when you drove everyone back and I was the last person in the car, you did this thing where you—“ He makes a show of slouching, like he’d just let go of some great weight. “You went all quiet, and you said—“

“I’m scared, Wonwoo-yah,” Seungcheol breathes, pulled back into the memory like a riptide. Wonwoo nods.

“I didn’t say it then, but I thought you were the strongest person I had ever met. You were scared and you did it anyway,” Wonwoo’s eyes are bright behind his glasses. It’s the most animated he’s been all night. “And you let me see that. _You_ trusted _me._ I think about it all the time.”

Seungcheol loses his breath just by looking at him. “When did you grow up so much?” he asks, voice soft enough to be snatched by the breeze.

Wonwoo shrugs, pleased.

“Same time you did.”

Seungcheol drives Wonwoo home as the sky lightens and he kisses him before letting him get out of the car. The kiss turns his glasses crooked on his nose and Seungcheol giggles as he straightens them.

“You know, this wasn’t how I expected tonight to go,” he admits.

“No? What did you expect?” Wonwoo asks, checking his reflection in the tiny mirror.

“Don’t know,” Seungcheol admits. “But this was nice.”

“Yeah?” Wonwoo smiles, shutting the visor with dull snap.

“Yeah.”

They smile at each other, quiet but not uncomfortable. There’s a rush of giddiness settling along Seungcheol’s skin, dulled by the sweetness of familiarity in Wonwoo’s eyes, the way his nose scrunches when the silence stretches for too long.

Seungcheol thought he knew what he’d find when he came running home, when he fled his one bedroom apartment, once warm and promising, now full of boxes and ghosts. He thought of his mother and his friends and the four walls he grew up tracing his palms along; the wallpaper marred with lines mapping out how long it took him to grow taller. He thought of saltwater and seashells. He didn’t really think of himself. Maybe he was trying to outrun that, too. But everything comes back. Everything flung towards the sunset eventually washes back to the shore.

As Wonwoo leans in to kiss him one more time, he thinks not of what he could find, but of what he could look for.

“How long are you staying in town?” Wonwoo asks him once he’s out of the car, head and shoulders leaned in through the open window.

Seungcheol drums his fingers on the steering wheel. The sun is starting to stretch her arms in the distance.

“Indefinitely.”

Wonwoo’s smile is blinding.

**Author's Note:**

> if i ever stop writing about the ocean you can consider it a cry for help


End file.
